An Early EditionReBoot Crossover
by Joshua Falken
Summary: A headline in the Paper makes Gary Hobson help a devasted town... in the eletronic world... (Completed)


An Early Edition/ReBoot Crossover  
by Joshua Falken

Revised by BenRG

"Meow." And the sound of a newspaper dropping.

Gary Hobson got up and opened the door of his room in the Blackstone Hotel, in Chicago. He caught the Chicago Sun-Times' edition and when he read the headline, he hit his hand against his forehead.

"Great...", he murmured. He looked at the clock; at least he had time to act.

==========

Robin Monroe and Dana Collins were checking the ADA-2902 Supercomputer, of Imagination Netgaming Company, a computer game company based in Vancouver, Canada, who also hosted multi-player 'net' games.

"Local input speed?"

"Checked."

"Remote input speed?"

"Checked."

"Virtual memory?"

"Checked."

"Remote output speed?"

"Checked. We are ready!" Dana concluded. 

"Ready to open the server for the Net!" Robin informed Mr. Abbot, the director of operations.

"Then put ADA online!"

He typed: 'Run Netlauncher'.

=============

The few non-infected sprites of the besieged system saw the cube of the net access configuration program drop down onto the Principal Office.

"Defrag!" a black-haired green sprite muttered, his robotic eye fixed on the descending cube.

A frightened binome turned to the sprite's friend, AndrAIa:

"If Wavelength infects the program, the resulting error will..." he left the sentence incomplete.

She just nodded.

==========

Robin read in the monitor

ROUTINE NETLAUNCHER  
STATUS: IN PROGRESS  
CHECKING: HARD DRIVE #32  
TIME FOR NET ACCESS... 5 MINUTES

==========

In the Core Control Room, in the centre of the Principal Office, a dark blue silhouette, with a light green shine in his arms and in his chest, was immersed in the darkness. The little light that existed, came from a screen where a series of numbers and letters blinked. With a command from the virus, a yellow sphere appeared in the centre of the room.

He walked in the direction of the sphere. In the sphere there was a symbol: a triangle with a telephone linked to a planet: the symbol of the Netlauncher Routine.

The virus touched the icon. The sphere passed from yellow to shiny green. The routine was infected.

Wavelength smiled.

==========

The telephone rang and Robin answered:

"Hello?"

"This is AT&T, with a long distance call from Gary Hobson. Do you accept the call?"

"Do you know someone called Gary Hobson?" He asked Dana.

"No."

"Where is the call from?"

"Chicago, United States. Do you accept the call?" The operator repeated.

Why would somebody in Chicago call a software developer in Vancouver? Curious, he accepted the call.

"Is this the Imagination Netgaming?"

"Yes."

"Listen, you need cut the access to the server!"

"What?!"

"The computer is infected by a virus! If you leave the system connec..."

Gary was interrupted by Robin, who was angry about this nonsense.

"Listen here, buddy, I don't know what kind of joke do you want us to fall for, but we have just checked that computer and it is OK!"

"No, it isn't!" Gary removed Chicago Sun-Times from within his jacket. The headline on the first page: "Virus Crashes All Computers in Northern Hemisphere".

Dana and Robin listened to Gary over the telephone.

"The detection routine was de-configured, the anti-virus system was corrupted! If you connect that thing, the virus will spread for the whole net, and your system will crash!"

Robin and Dana looked from one to the other.

"Crash?" they asked in unison.

With something similar to an epileptic spasm, they both lunged for the ESC key, bumping heads in their haste.

===========

Wavelength was about to enter in the connection sphere when the Voice of the System announced through the city:

"Warning, Connection Aborted! Warning, Connection Aborted!"

The sphere disappeared.

The virus let out a scream of rage.

Matrix couldn't contain his laughter when he heard the message of the Voice of the System. Finally, the User helped them!

===========

"Activate Cyberlevel 4!" Dana announced, activating the emergency anti-virus.

==========

The troops of Wavelength were to attack the non-infected sprites, when, from the centre of the interface, a beam of light blue energy appeared. When an infected sprite was illuminated by the energy, it was locked in a file-lock.

The rebel sprites invaded the Principal Office. Matrix and AndrAIa went until they found the Core Control room, guided by the virus' screams of anger.

The virus heard them arriving and he got ready.

When they arrived, the virus jumped off the roof of the room, trying cut Matrix's throat with a blade in the palm of his hand. AndrAIa was on the other side of the room, trying to revert the infection. Matrix threw the virus in the centre of the room.

"Gun, command line: Laser!"

Holding the wound in his neck, he pointed and fired. The laser went by Wavelength. The beam reflected in AndrAIa's trident. The reflected laser hit Wavelength, deleting him.

==========

The headline had changed. Now it was: Mail carrier strike begins tomorrow. Gary hung up the telephone.

=============

Dana watched the monitor as the anti-virus software reported: VIRUS DESTROYED.

==========

Gary ran to catch the El. On the other side of the city, somebody was going die in a fire. "Another day, another crisis!", he thought, never once realising that, this time, he had saved two worlds from electronic tyranny his and a strange electronic world, similar to but utterly different from his own

The end

* * *

Disclaimer: Early Edition and its characters are property of CBS. ReBoot and its characters are property of Mainframe Entertainment. No Copyright infligement is intented. This is a fanfiction work, created for fun.


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